Camera Movements

[bwaysteve]

Picture an 8x10 w/360mm lens on a tripod ,ground glass at 6 ft.high
Camera pointed at 30 degree angle to subject(person 7 ft. from camera head to top of thigh 3/4 portrait)
How would you adjust the front and rear standards?Would they both be at 90 degrees with subject to have all in focus?
I noticed in Laura Wilson's Book on the making of Avedon's In The American West in most setups his camera was at this angle but the standards were not adjusted.I attempted this@f22 and was out of focus from mid chest down.

[Jorge Gasteazoro]

Picture an 8x10 w/360mm lens on a tripod ,ground glass at 6 ft.high
Camera pointed at 30 degree angle to subject(person 7 ft. from camera head to top of thigh 3/4 portrait)
How would you adjust the front and rear standards?Would they both be at 90 degrees with subject to have all in focus?
I noticed in Laura Wilson's Book on the making of Avedon's In The American West in most setups his camera was at this angle but the standards were not adjusted.I attempted this@f22 and was out of focus from mid chest down.

Well some questions before any of us can help you. Is the person sitting down or not? WHen you say camera at 30º angle I take it to mean the camera is pointing down, am I mistaken?

Assuming the person is sitting and the camera is pointing down, you want to tilt the front standard a bit, probably 2 or 3 degrees, this should give you enough dof and you should be able to see it in the gg. Perhaps someone more experienced with portraits might want to chip in, but I don't think you want to tilt the back standard towards the back, this would introduce distortion that might not be flattering to the subject.

BTW, while they might have shown the shot without movements, that does not mean they took the shot that way, besides, a small degree of tilt is hard to see in a photograph. Don't fall for the camera turned into a pretzel that you see in all the book covers, you rarely need a lot of movement to have big changes.

[bwaysteve]

Thanks Jorge,
My subject is standing full front.
GG shows top of head to top of thigh (3/4 body shot).
Camera is yes, pointing down 30 degrees at subject.
Every shot of his different setups in the book shows the camera aiming down 30 degrees with no apparent adjustments.

[Jorge Gasteazoro]

Thanks Jorge,
My subject is standing full front.
GG shows top of head to top of thigh (3/4 body shot).
Camera is yes, pointing down 30 degrees at subject.
Every shot of his different setups in the book shows the camera aiming down 30 degrees with no apparent adjustments.

I must be missing something, if the model is standing and the camera is tilted at 30º down, why not just lower the camera? Are you trying to get a specific effect?

If you are tilting the camera down for whatever reason and you just have to do it this way, try tilting the front standard back not forward, you should tilt it until you see the head getting sharper, although IMO this is just harder than just lowering the camera.

[Anupam]

How would you adjust the front and rear standards?Would they both be at 90 degrees with subject to have all in focus?

If I understand the setup, front backtilt will do the trick.

You can't have both be 90 degrees to the subject with the camera pointing down. Instead you could have the camera horizontal and then use front fall or back rise. But then, you might as well lower the camera.

[Wally]

If I understand the setup, front backtilt will do the trick.

You can't have both be 90 degrees to the subject with the camera pointing down. Instead you could have the camera horizontal and then use front fall or back rise. But then, you might as well lower the camera.

I think you can (but I'm kinda new at this. What I know I learned from Steve Simmon's book. Steve, if I got this wrong, help me out). It's just that I define 'pointing at the subject' as pointing the rail at the subject.

You can either 1: tilt the camera down, then apply back tilt to both the front and rear standards to bring them back to parallel to the subject plane; or 2: keep the camera level and apply rise and fall as Anupam says.

Maybe the photographer doesn't lower the camera because (s)he is intereted in capturing the subject's bald spot?

[Ralph Barker]

There are numerous variations possible, as has already been noted.

With a standing subject, and the camera height such that the GG is at the photographer's (also standing) height, tilting the whole, still-squared camera down 30° will position the subject correctly within the frame, but will result in uneven focus. That is to say, the plane of sharp focus would also be at an angle.

Back-tilt on both the front and back standards will keep the subject's geometry correct and improve focus on the subject plane. Back-tilt on just the front standard would improve the focus, but would result in some distortion of the subject's geometry. When using tilts or other movements, the coverage of the lens also needs to be considered, of course.

The choice of technique would depend on what you want the image to look like.

[bwaysteve]

Thanks Ralph for the clear explanation.I normally shoot down slightly on people for it tends to make them more angular or trimming with fixed lens cameras.
I am assuming in the Avedon pictures it was his way(shooting down at an angle) of filling the frame ,although every picture of the ongoing shoot appeared to have no tilt adjustment I could see.Thanks,Steve

[David A. Goldfarb]

The reason to position the camera high and use rear rise to reframe, rather than just lowering the camera, is that you might want a higher perspective to avoid looking up the subject's nose or to make a flabby neck less prominent, or if the lens has some falloff of illumination and/or resolution you might want to put the sharpest part of the image field over the face and let the image fall off gracefully to the corners of the frame.

Avedon was probably using a lot of light, so he could stop down quite a bit.

[steve simmons]

In the situation descrbed by the OP a little back tilt on the front standard would solve the problem w/o changing what he saw through the gg initially. If he leaves the front standard as is then a little front tilt on the rear standard would help the focus but cause a change in the shape of the person - it would increase the size of anything in the top half of the photo (the bottom of the gg) and decrease the size of anything in the bottom half of the photo (top of the gg).

I generally use front tilt for focus because front swing and tilt may only make minimal and usually imperceptable changes in the size and shape relationships of different parts of the image whereas back swing and tilt will make more noticeable changes in the shape and size relationships of the different parts of the image.

steve simmons
www.viewcamera.com
www.foto3-2008.com